I tried the Rob Brown method!

Bo Eder

Bo Eder

Platinum Member
And IT WORKS!

All my life I always took extra care tuning my floor toms, working hard to get a nice deep tone. When I saw Rob Browns' video on how to tune up a drum, I just sat there and did it, and he was right! I had an acceptable floor tom sound in literally seconds!

All he did was loosen both heads, and then, pushing down on the head so you can see the wrinkles, use your key to bring up each tension rod til the wrinkles went away. Repeat for the bottom head and BOOM - it's done. You can fine-tune from there, but his method puts you 95% there already.

If you haven't done at least your floor tom this way - I recommend trying it. Life seems infinitely easier now.

OK - carry on.

 
I've tried it, and it didn't work well, but I may have been pushing down too hard in the middle. A friend of mine uses his tuning method and instead of using the palm of his hand, he uses a kettle weight in the middle (maybe 5lb?).
 
It works for some but not others is the vibe I get from the comments on his YouTube channel regarding this video.

I think the key is to have some kinda small weight in the middle of the head to minimise variables like applying different forces using your hands etc.

Personally it does work quite well for me. It makes the toms deep and punchy.

Rob is just such a treasure of a resource, well for me anyway. I hold him in high regard and I have a lot of respect for him, especially considering that his information/advice is totally free and pretentious free.

I've been using this tuning method of his for a while now..... both for his toms and the other one he did for the bass drum. My bass drums' sounds' now are just deadly.
 
Bo Eder said:
All he did was loosen both heads, and then, pushing down on the head so you can see the wrinkles, use your key to bring up each tension rod til the wrinkles went away. Repeat for the bottom head and BOOM - it's done. You can fine-tune from there, but his method puts you 95% there already.
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I have been using Rob's tuning method for a good while. Love his tutorials and find them extremely helpful. IMO, Rob always offers a big dose of "Calm down already." :cool:
 
Bo Eder said:
Probably why I’ve been diggin his channel - definitely TOO much thinking going on. For everything.
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Yes, he's really refreshing and cuts through the chase. He gets to the point, doesn't waste our time and has not only great camera work and recording but super chops as well. Very professional. :cool:
 
I don’t know if I learned it from Rob, but I use that method on my bass drum. Works quite well on 18” bass drums (the nemesis of @Bo Eder 😁). To my ears an 18” sounds best just above wrinkle. No flop, no boing. I usually tune toms more in the jazz range, but the wrinkle method gets you off to a good even start!

I need to check out Rob’s channel again. I watched it a bunch when I first got back into playing and found YouTube, but then moved onto other things. There’s probably a lot of good stuff on there.
 
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I saw Will Kennedy use that tuning method a long time ago on the Evans website. It works for me. Peace and goodwill.
 
I'm sure the Rob Brown approach works in most cases, but I can tell you that nothing worked on my 16" square-badge Gretsch floor tom except cranking the bottom head into the sky. Initially, it was frustrating and it doesn't make any sense, but that Hail Mary attempt paid off. That thing kills now.



Dan
 
equipmentdork said:
I'm sure the Rob Brown approach works in most cases, but I can tell you that nothing worked on my 16" square-badge Gretsch floor tom except cranking the bottom head into the sky. Initially, it was frustrating and it doesn't make any sense, but that Hail Mary attempt paid off. That thing kills now.



Dan
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Really?..hmmm....the hail Mary reminds me of 8 seconds left in the Superbowl and the QB pass lands in the hands of the receiver 60 yards downfield for the TD!. Glad you hit your receiver! 😃
 
Bozozoid said:
Really?..hmmm....the hail Mary reminds me of 8 seconds left in Superbowl and it lands in the hands of the receiver 60 yards for the TD!. Glad you hit your receiver! 😃
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It was my last attempt at making it sound like...something. Like "take that, you b@stard!" lol. I still don't get it, as I have an 18" from around the same time and it tunes up fine.


Dan
 
You gotta be consistent pushing on head but yeah it gets you in ball park.
Have any of you folks tried that Masshoff snare tuning method?
That just seems wacky -like it would kill heads, rims, bearing edges, and maybe affect round in time?
I'm usually wrong but my instincts tell me that. That and the ambiguous going from finger tight and one or two full turns certain ones won't hold up even because other lugs will not be finger tight one you tighten the heck out of one lug. Just doesn't make sense to me. It's probably the go to thang I'm missing my luck LOL.
 
I use it to quickly get me there when I'm time limited.
I mostly prefer the tune-bot 95% of the time however.
 
Bozozoid said:
If you get on YouTube go to Cole Paramores How to get the Benny Greb floor tom sound. It explains it in detail. It's kinda how I've been doing it all along. It explains it better than I could here. If you ever get a minute.
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Thanks mate for the link. I'll check it out.
 
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